Still Serving

Gathered with fellow members of GW gymnastics around a virtual "table" covered with very real poems, Anna Warhol felt inspired.

From her home in Poland, Ohio, the junior was able to meet up with the rest of the Colonials in a chat room two weeks ago. Together, they read and reacted to short haikus and long-form compositions written by incarcerated youth as part of Free Minds Book Club's Virtual Write Night.

"Everyone's going through a hard time right now," Warhol said. "We wanted them to feel like they're being heard as much as we're being heard."

Across GW Athletics, student-athletes are finding ways to make the best of a difficult spring amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Over the course of the school year, the Colonials have combined to log 7,118.40 hours of community service, a total that has continued climbing in recent weeks thanks to virtual opportunities.

GW Student-Athlete Development helped that mission by creating a web page outlining organizations looking for help, and the student-athletes took advantage to complete a variety of projects from their home bases around the globe.

"Obviously in uncertain times, you have to change and adapt," said Annie Carberry, who is in her second year as Student-Athlete Development Graduate Assistant. "Community service is a huge component of GW Athletics' values, so when everything started shifting, we thought it was very important to continue emphasizing our values. Thankfully, community service can be done virtually – you can still help people in your community from the comfort of your own home."

Some of the projects involve continuing to partner with organizations that are a part of the D.C. community.

Mia Parker and her GW softball teammates have developed some special friendships at St. Coletta of Greater Washington, a local school for youngsters with intellectual disabilities, thanks to regular visits through KEEN of Greater D.C.-Baltimore.

Back home in California, Parker decided to stay connected by sending personalized letters to some of the children she's met through those laugh-filled mornings playing basketball and other sports.

More than a dozen Colonials have remained active with The Grassroot Project, a non-profit that has been using student-athletes to teach local middle schoolers important health lessons through fun and games for more than a decade.

Abby Carlin of GW lacrosse had been teaching the eighth-grade mental health unit at KIPP DC's Shaw campus before she headed home to New York with her team's spring season canceled and classes moved online.

Carlin found a way to stay involved helping the organization launch its #GrassrootsHome campaign to reach students outside of the classroom with videos and accompanying assignments.

She worked with teammate Megan Patrick via FaceTime to script and film a short video detailing a game called "Stress Football" that teaches how stressors affect physical and mental health.

Together, they'd had fun teaching the game as part of the unit's pilot program last fall, taking a ribbing from the class for their lack of football skill. Despite being 1,700 miles apart, they were able to teach the same lesson virtually – with help from Patrick's cardboard cutout of singer Harry Styles serving as a defender.

"We had to improvise a little bit," Carlin said with a laugh.

For Carlin, staying involved with Grassroots felt like a slice of normal during an unprecedented time. She and Patrick have plans to put together another video lesson after final exams.

"The kids that we work with are so empowering and have such effects on us," Carlin said. "I know that we impact their lives, as well, but I would say that they impact ours more than they would ever know."

Rowers Bailey Hoglin and Nora Vedder have also put together video lessons, while Vedder, Callie Fauntleroy of volleyball and Beth Ellinport of women's soccer are starting to work on small-grant proposals to help the organization secure more funding.

Another group of Colonials, including Ryan Cedeno of men's soccer, have provided feedback on their recent experience in the classroom to help improve the programming when it returns.

"It's amazing and really exciting to see all the support, but I'm not at all surprised that they've been this resilient and this adamant about continuing to be involved in the D.C. community even though they're all around the country and going through their own challenges right now," said Mackenzie Jones, a GW lacrosse alumna who now works as a Program Manager at Grassroots.

Other service projects are first-time collaborations. Carberry hopes that some of the new additions to the Virtual Community Service page remain options when student-athletes are back on campus.

"A lot of it was just Google searching," Carberry said. "I looked up 'virtual community service,' and I was blown away by all the different types that there actually are, even if you're not in a pandemic."

The list includes Translators Without Borders, a non-profit that "aims to close the language gaps that hinder critical humanitarian and international development efforts worldwide."

Men's tennis has been discussing ways to stay productive amid quarantine in its weekly meetings with head coach Rob Castille, and Translators Without Borders seemed like a perfect fit for a squad with several multilingual student-athletes on the roster.

Earlier this school year, the group made a pair of visits to serve breakfast to the homeless at So Others Might Eat and also spent a day helping with an adoption event at Rural Dog Rescue. Translators Without Borders provided a decidedly different way to make an impact with Zicheng Zeng, Hanyu Liu and Jakub Behun signed up to help.

Zeng, a sophomore from Chengdu, China, has translated the introductions to a pair of medical research papers, including one about the relationship between chronic disease and COVID-19, from English into Chinese from his dorm room in Foggy Bottom.

Some of the medical terms took the Business Analytics major out of his comfort zone, but after a bit of online research, he scored high marks through Translators Without Borders' evaluation system for his efforts.

"Since everything is locked down and especially with this stay-at-home order, it's very nice if we can be of help or support in any way," Zeng said. "Even if it's just doing translation online, I think that's a really meaningful experience."

Founded in D.C. and then expanded nationally, Free Minds Book Club's mission is connecting people. A favorite motto of the program: "Whenever a Free Minds poem is read, hope is spread."

GW student-athletes first got involved last fall when the women's tennis team attended an in-person session to read and provide feedback to local incarcerated youth. With efforts pushed exclusively online this spring through monthly Virtual Write Nights and an on-going blog to showcase the poems, the women's soccer and gymnastics squads have stepped up to help.

Over 90 minutes, Warhol estimates she went through 15 poems, offering uplifting notes to each author. Afterward, the gymnast and her teammates filled their group message chain with enthusiasm for the project, grateful for the opportunity to band together to make a difference while apart.

"We all miss each other dearly – we're used to seeing each other 24/7," Warhol said. "It means a lot to each of us to be able to hear from each other and to be able to help people while we're doing it just makes it a little bit sweeter."

For more information about virtual community service opportunities, click here.

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Jakub Behun

Abby Carlin

Ryan Cedeno

Beth Ellinport

Callie Fauntleroy

Bailey Hoglin

Hanyu Liu

Mia Parker

Megan Patrick

Nora Vedder

Anna Warhol

Zicheng Zeng